Stem
by Minnionette
Summary: One day, Hiruzen has a brilliant idea. "Danzo, how would you like to be the leader of an autonomous but officially unsanctioned branch of ANBU that I can secretly use to root out traitors and dissent?" Danzo is not pleased with being dragged into this latest scheme. "Why do all your brilliant ideas make me look like an evil reprobate?" (Litter of Misfits)
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning, at the height of springtime in Fire Country. The dew had just recently burned off the grass, and in the distance, Sarutobi Hiruzen could hear the chipper call of the legendary red hawks just before it divebombed a native acid-spewing leech. It was hard to hear the chipper call over the ragged breathing, but Hiruzen liked to look on the bright side of things. The moment was made even better with the companionship of one of his oldest and dearest friends.

"Well, there's really no way to announce this subtely, so I'll just come out and say it: Hanzo has graciously offered to assassinate you so I can become Hokage. I just have to help him defeat a ragtag bunch of rebels that's giving him a hard time in Rain."

It really was a beautiful Tuesday, but Hiruzen stopped enjoying his brief moment of piece to sit upright from where he had collapsed on the ground, and frowned sideways at his companion. Shimura Danzo was laying face-first in the dirt, breathing hard with his graying hair plastered with sweat from their weekly spar. Sparring with former teammates was one of the few times that Hiruzen was still able to get out of the Hokage Tower for some decent exercise, and that happened so rarely now that they were in the middle of the Third Shinobi War and Danzo was often away on the warfront. This was also the only time the Hokage wasn't surrounded by guards who could overhear Danzo.

Hiruzen barely surpressed his whimper of dismay at the thought of all the documents awaiting his perusal and signature, steadily stacking up in higher and higher piles because he had the audacity to not arrive before dawn. "If you want to be Hokage, then by all means - the hat is yours, my friend. You don't even have to get some weird creep to assassinate me." And if he had the hat with him (which he left at his office, alas!), Hiruzen would've immediately jammed it down around Danzo's ears.

"Nuh-uh." Danzo turned his face so he could glare at Hiruzen with his one eye, cheek and forehead smeared with freshly-upturned dirt. "I'm having way too much fun killing Iwa and Ame nin. I don't wanna be tied to a desk pushing papers. Besides, why should I give _Hanzo_ the satisfaction of killing you when I've been patiently biding my time to exact vengeance for your blanket theft? I shall _never_ forgive, nor forget, this terrible transgression."

"We were _twelve_ , Tobirama-sensei had us camping together in the high desert mountains of Suna, and I get cold really easy. Are you ever going to let that die?"

Danzo grinned. For just a breathless minute, he seemed so young and boyish. "My grudge has kept me warm for almost half a century, and it will continue to burn for generations to come."

"I'm so tired of the paperwork. Please?" Hiruzen pinched his forefinger and thumb together. "Just an itty-bitty death for a week?"

"Nope. Undying grudge. Like hell I'd inadvertantly give you a week's vacation. That would be a favor, which defeats the whole idea behind exacting vengeance."

Hiruzen flopped backwards onto the ground again, and then reached beneath his back to pull out a large pinecone. He tossed it to the side. They were in the middle of the Forest of Death, and they had decided to only use ninjutsu for their spar. Between the sheering forces of Danzo's wind jutsu and the explosive heat of Hiruzen's fire jutsu, they managed to make a lovely little clearing that was currently being avoided by the many, many natural (and unnatural, considering Orochimaru's predeliction for experimenting on the local flora and fauna) predators.

The leeches currently being divebombed _used_ to only be the size of Hiruzen's fists. Now some approached the size of a non-Forest of Death tiger. Once he undoubtedly realized that the leeches required a larger predator to keep the population from spreading outside the Forest of Death, Hiruzen suspected that Orochimaru probably crossed the red hawk with a woolly mammoth. Maybe he shouldn't have encouraged Orochimaru to pursue the sciences when his apprentices had been so young...

Hiruzen folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the clouds. He ignored the tight pull and throbbing pain in his arm. It was nice to relax, even if he had wind burns that stripped the skin off his left forearm and there was a bleeding hole in his right foot from one of Danzo's earth spikes. "Isn't that the third assassination offer you've gotten on me in the last three months?"

"Fourth."

Hiruzen raised an arm overhead, briefly shielding his eyes from the sun, and ticked off each finger as he spoke. "So, this offer is from Ame, there was another from Iwa - but that's standard, because it's practically tradition by now for them to make _one_ assassination attempt at least every year."

Danzo's laugh was dry, but his voice was bitter. "It just wouldn't feel right if Iwa wasn't trying to kill our Hokage."

"They get away with it once, and they'll turn their success into a habit - just like the way they keep starting these wars. And then you told me two weeks ago about Getsugakure - I don't even know what I did to piss _them_ off so badly. I forget most of the time they even exist. What's the fourth assassination offer?"

"Hmmm. Kusa wants your head because of something Minato's team did. They were the first, three months ago."

"Of _course_ they do. Some ally Kusa is. Because clearly my head would be much easier to get than the Yellow Flash's after he had to go and wipe out a thousand Iwa nin." Hiruzen waved his hand to convey as much irritation as he could muster. With his current level of energy, it was a limp-wristed flop. "Well, Kusa can just get in line with Iwa and Ame and Getsu."

Danzo sat upright. His right arm was charred and blistering. He carefully cradled it to his chest. "Tell you what - I'll let the four villages know that we're going to start holding drawings on who I'll do the assassination for, and they have to put a large amount of cash into the pot to be eligible for the drawing."

Hiruzen patted Danzo's knee condenscendingly. "Well, you just have fun with that, my friend. And why don't I ever hear about anyone trying to arrange assassinations from someone else? What is it about you that just attracts all these offers?"

"I can't _possibly_ imagine why." Danzo rolled onto his back with a grunt. "It's like people think I dislike you or something. Good thing, too. Who knows what sort of irritated evil megalomaniac would otherwise be getting these offers?"

This brought a sudden question to Hiruzen's mind: who indeed _would_ be getting the offers if they didn't go through Danzo? At least he could trust Danzo, despite the obvious misgivings of many other people, because Danzo loved Konoha and put the survival of Konoha before anything else - he'd sacrifice his own ego, much less his own life, for Konoha, and that said something about Danzo. After all, pride was something that killed people a lot more than their own love, and was almost always the last thing to which a deserate, dying person clung to. But it also worried Hirzuen, because what if someone tried to approach a different Konoha nin with offers of power, one who wasn't as upright as Danzo?

These thoughts spiraled into something very intricate. His mind followed ideas through different scenerios and conclusions, and something that was borderline _brilliant_ and yet _evil_ was merging into a solid plan, at the speed of thought that had made him famous for being the Professor. There was already another position he desperately needed and wanted Danzo to fill, and this would go hand-in-hand with _that_.

Danzo sat upright, blinked a few times, and then leaned over until his entire head filled Hiruzen's vision. Danzo was the world's ugliest little storm cloud, trying to blot out Hiruzen's sun. "You're thinking something that I don't think I'm going to like."

Hiruzen couldn't stop the smile that stretched his face as his thoughts solidified into a single idea. "Danzo, how would you like to be the leader of an autonomous but officially unsanctioned branch of ANBU that I can secretly use to root out traitors and dissent? You'll need to act as if you're trying to undermine and eventually overthrow me, and be generally appealing to traitors, but you get to be as brutal and sadistic as your heart so desires. Mind you, I shall deny any involvement in the blink of an eye, and would hang you for treason if you're caught. That is the price of this particular S rank Black Ops."

The best part was how Danzo wouldn't have to change his character _at all_. No one would suspect a thing!

Danzo's glare was acidic. "Hiruzen, just why do your ideas always make me look like an unmitigated bastard?"

" _Make_ you look?" Hiruzen shook a finger at Danzo. "You don't need any help from me on that front. Oh, don't be like that, Danzo - really, I'm taking Konoha's best interest at heart here!" The shaking finger turned into an affectionate clasp on the shoulder. "You're literally the only person I can trust to have this much power and control, working in the shadows behind my back. Even if you plant a kunai in it, I know that my death would serve a greater purpose for Konoha. But you must remember – Konoha mustn't just _live_ , she has to _thrive_." Hiruzen refused to let Danzo rain on his parade, so he sat upright, which made Danzo lean back. "Think about it - you're already in ANBU, you already train the new recruits, you already try to pull clandestine crap in the Black Ops while thinking I don't notice-"

"Fuck that, _I_ know _you_ know what I pull, and I only stepped out of line _once_ and for good reason!" It was left unsaid that then-twelve-year-old Inuzuka Tsume never should've been sold to a brothel, so Danzo's uncharacteristic intervention had merit, even if doing so went against every spoken and unspoken rule in ANBU and Black Ops.

"-and need I remind you that you're so neurotic that you have your own exemption subclause to pass the minimal required psychosocial stability for active ANBU? Despite all that, I _trust_ you, you trust me, and you haven't once tried to kill me in the forty-some years that we've been such great friends, no matter how much you resent the fact that I kept stealing the blankets."

Danzo pointedly looked at Hiruzen's bleeding foot.

"Oh, that was in the heat of sparring, and I did my best to make you bleed, too. That doesn't count, Danzo."

Danzo flopped backwards into the dirt and said nothing as he gingerly folded his arms over his chest. Hiruzen flopped backwards too, and squirmed around until his head touched Danzo's, just like they were young boys cloud-gazing instead of battle-hardened men on the long side of middle age. Hiruzen was willing to be silent, letting Danzo internally process the ingenious plan. He knew that Danzo would eventually see the light and wisdom of his brilliant plan.

Although... Hiruzen kinda felt a bit guilty about setting Danzo up to be the bad guy, but being a good ninja meant that you sometimes had to get your hands dirty, and Danzo made a lifestyle out of getting dirty. But as he had also said, Hiruzen truly _trusted_ Danzo. If anyone else was given this level of trust and power, Hiruzen wasn't sure that the person wouldn't eventually become corrupted.

When Danzo didn't seem willing to give Hiruzen any response, he double-checked to make sure that Danzo hadn't fallen asleep by trying to pinch Danzo's unburned arm. When Danzo responded by trying to dislocated Hiruzen's fingers, he slipped free and decided to ask something that he had been wondering about for a long time. "When did you stop wanting to be the Hokage?"

It was, after all, sad to see someone who had given up on a lifelong ambition and dream.

"I've never said I didn't want to be the Hokage."

"No, you haven't. But I feel like somewhere you just... gave up."

Danzo sighed. "Letting go is not the same as giving up."

Hiruzen hadn't let many things _go_ in his life - he had lost more than he had let go. But he didn't think that there was much of a difference between letting go and giving up. "Are you sure?"

Danzo was silent for a moment as a cloud drifted across the sun. If Hiruzen squinted just right, the cloud looked like Jiraiya's hair. "Hiruzen, this is the Third Shinobi World War. I've fought in all _three_ of these damn wars. I wasn't born in peaceful times, and I'm heartless and cruel to _everyone_ \- I'll either be viciously poisoned by one of my own men in my home village, or killed in battle by the enemy. After which my men will probably throw a thank-you party for the enemy. Either way, I will die the same way I lived. Konoha should be led by a man of peace, not some old war hawk like me. It should be led by someone who is going to strive for peace, who's willing to protect instead of slaughter, who will allow the village to thrive in peaceful times. It's easy to make a living in war and in death. You have ruled and led through peace and through war, and you've been able to let Konohagakure flourish through one, and survive the other.

"You have always been a better man than I, and I'm not what Konoha needs."

Hiruzen wondered how much it cost Danzo to say that last part. Danzo was always striving to improve his strengths and shore up his flaws. While Danzo admired and admitted if someone was _stronger_ than him, he didn't readily acknowledge if someone was _better_. Then again, Danzo loved Konoha more than his own pride, and there were a rare few of which that could be said.

Now he really did feel bad for what he was trying to talk Danzo into doing. "If I was a better man, I wouldn't be trying to consign you to the shadows like this."

"That would imply that you didn't already need to drag me kicking and screaming from the shadows." Danzo considered for a moment. "By my bloody fingernails."

 _That_ was certainly true. "I need a spymaster. My last one was killed in an ambush by Suna."

"Well, shit."

"Tell me about it. That's another reason why I'm asking you to do this Black Ops. We can funnel our spies and spooks through this clandestine operation, and if our enemies tried to backtrack the spies, they'll run right into you - someone with trecherous ambitions _clearly_ out to undermine me, so _of course_ these wouldn't be spies _for_ Konoha, not if they're working for you. Plus, it also gives you the ability to manipulate the criminal underground to help our spies and spooks."

Danzo now appeared to be strongly considering the plan. "This is actually starting to have merit. Especially if I go along with Hanzo's latest offer and try to stage an assassination against you. A failed assassination attempt followed by the creation of my own personal underground organization would time together beautifully."

"See, I knew you'd see the light. Can you wound me enough in this assassination attempt that I can get a week off of work?"

Danzo chuckled. "Light? No, this would be in the shadows, my friend. How about we _just_ say that you're wounded, save me the effort of actually hurting you more than what we've already done today, and then your health will be robust enough that you can enjoy your week off?"

"You _do_ love me, after all! I propose that we call this organization of yours ROOT, because you always go on about how the roots feed in the darkness in order to support the great tree overhead, allowing the leaves to bask in the sun." Hiruzen was trying not to look as smug as he felt, now that he was getting his way with Danzo. Trying to manipulate someone as bullheaded as Danzo was almost like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon: fruitless, pointless, and frustrating.

"How long have you been thinking about this?"

"For you as my spymaster? About two weeks, immediately after I received notice of Ami's death. For this clandestine organization? About ten minutes."  
Danzo made a rude sound. "That's almost as bad as you trying to run Konoha while high off of cough syrup."

"If I was high, it was from lack of oxygen, not the medicine." Which reminded him: the medics would no longer prescribe anymore of that lovely codeine cough syrup. Hiruzen had asked the head of the hospital, Nara Shikake, why he wasn't allowed any more such medicine, and had been firmly told that Danzo had more-or-less forbidden it via an omnious memo pinned to the hospital's front door with a kunai. Which just proved that Danzo was perfect for this job - if he could get away with telling the medical establishment what they could or couldn't prescribe for their Hokage, then he could get away with telling people who they could or couldn't assassinate.

Danzo grumbled. "Now, hold on, here. What makes you think that I can skillfully run such an organization under your nose and not get caught? This is a village of paranoid warriors who find schemes and enemy conspiracies everywhere. There's no way that I could get away with any of this with the tracker-clans we have. One can literaly smell deceit - and won't _that_ be an obnoxiously loud alarm they'd raise if they found a large pocket of such in the middle of their village - one can see through walls, and the other can send insects undetected into otherwise secure locations to check on something so obviously internally clandestine."

"Is that a no?"

"That's a 'I-refuse-to-do-this-alone' answer. If I'm going to run such an extensive Black Ops in the heart of the village, I want the involvement of certain clan heads that could cover up and dismiss any accusations that may arise. And I hear rocs coming close. Let's get undercover because I don't feel like punching any beaks today."

They both ignored their screaming muscles and the uncomfortably loud pops and cracks of stiff joints as they limped togther across the newly-made field. Hiruzen threw an arm around Danzo's shoulders to help avoid putting weight on his still-bleeding foot, and Danzo huffed as he wrapped his uninjured arm around Hiruzen's waist.

As they walked, Hiruzen considered the additional of other players. It was hard to control the secrecy of a Black Ops the more people who knew the truth, so it was always risky giving out classified information. However, it was fair for Danzo to insist on making certain powerful individuals aware if he wanted to be successful. " I assume you mean the Aburame and the Inuzuka."

Danzo dropped him under the shade of a mutated oak. This one wasn't likely to have killer acorns, though. "And the Hyuuga." He flopped down beside Hiruzen and raised his canteen to his lips. It was empty. "Damn it." He shook it upside down a few times as if this would magically make water appear, and then peered inside. He flipped the canteen around and pointedly glared at the pinprick hole that Hiruzen maybe-sorta-kinda deliberately drilled into with a chakra-laced pebble during their spar. "I want someone powerful enough that inquiring minds couldn't argue with."

"T&I?" Their field was momentarily blotted dark in a gigantic shadow as a roc soared overhead with a local bull caught in its talons.

"No. I still want to be personally involved in T&I through ANBU the way I have been, but ROOT needs to be kept seperate. If our enemies sniff around and trace ROOT back and through T&I, they'll know that it's a trap." Danzo swiped Hiruzen's canteen. The water in the Forest of Death was usually safe enough to drink, as long as you stayed away from the snapping turtles and crocodiles, and when it wasn't the first Tuesday after a new moon. They had brought canteens because today just happened to be the first Tuesday after the new moon.

Hiruzen really needed to have a talk with Orochimaru about tinkering around in the Forest of Death. Unfortunately, Orochimaru was busy sulking over the fact that Hiruzen had decided to make Namikaze Minato his replacement as Hokage. "So the Yamanaka clan is a no-go. Hey - hey, don't backwash in my canteen!" Hiruzen tried to grab the canteen away from Danzo, but Danzo held it outside of his reach and slapped his hands away. "That's disgusting, and I'm saying that as a father of three."

"Oh, piss off, Hokage. I'm trying to kill you with my germs."

"Blech. Couldn't you just stab me instead?"

Danzo went very still as he studied Hiruzen. Then he set the canteen down, slowly removed a kunai from his holster, and poked Hiruzen twice in the ribcage with the pointy end. Hiruzen barely felt it. "Stabbity-stabbity."

Hiruzen threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, Danzo, we're going to have so much fun over the years, trolling our enemies."

* * *

 **Author's notes** : I just love how these two old friends play off of each other. I've always been of the theory that not only did Hiruzen know about ROOT and turn a blind eye on its function, he was the one who put Danzo up to it in the first place. And I also like to think that Hiruzen's open forgiveness towards Danzo for Danzo's assassination attempt was because he was in on the whole thing. Hey, when you're a Kage, the opportunities to take a vacation are few and far between, all right. At his or her heart, a ninja is always looking for the best advantage and opportunity, and Hiruzen was one of the best.

Admittedly, when I have nothing better to do than to ildly daydream about characters in different situations, I like to think of Hiruzen and Danzo starring in their own The Odd Couple sitcom.


End file.
